The sixth Annual Irish SIAM Student Chapter Conference was held at NUI Galway on 6 December 2019. Clement Calvino, Daniel Giles and Tatjana Kokina, PhD students and members of the Wave Group of School of Mathematics and Statistics, UCD, attended the conference.

It was a full day, with plenary lectures and presentations from PhD students from all over Ireland. The range of topics was very broad and everyone got to see all possible applications of mathematics from social networks and the dark web, to oceans and protein adsorption.

SIAM collage final

The third and last HIGHWAVE public meeting explaining the 5-year project (2019-2024) took place on Inis Oírr on 27 November 2019. It was well attended despite bad weather over the Aran Islands for the past couple of days. Professor Dias and Research Engineer Arnaud Disant were asked a lot of questions on wave breaking, environmental issues, instrumentation but also on the future of the project after 2024. 

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Professor Frédéric Dias delivered today on Inis Meáin the second talk on extreme wave generation and wave breaking related to the HIGHWAVE project on the Aran Islands. The presentation took place at Halla Naomh Eoin. The local fishing community was represented and the support of Ciara (Bainisteoir, Comhlacht Forbartha Inis Meáin) is kindly acknowledged. The project is already receiving unconditional support from the local community. The project will return benefits in kind, such as data which can be used to backup grant applications. Regular progress meetings will be organised on Inis Meáin.

public meeting gaeilge Inis Oirr

ESA Advanced Ocean Synergy Training Course 2019 took place in the beautiful city of Chania, Greece from 4 to 8 November 2019.

The days were packed with theory lectures, interactive lectures and group work. Every day was dedicated to a particular subject ranging from Wind Waves and Wave/Current Interaction to Polar Oceans. There were 42 participants of 18 different nationalities and backgrounds. This made the above-mentioned group work interesting and challenging, as mathematicians had to work together with marine biologists and photogrammetry engineers, to name a few.

The lectures were presented by outstanding lecturers and leading researchers. It was amazing to see how different instruments can be used in synergy to tackle a wide range of problems. Not only scientific, but also societal problems such as climate change.

Tatjana Kokina attended the course, as a part of the HIGHWAVE project. It was a great opportunity to see the wealth of Earth Observation data and the tools available. The training provided insights into using remote sensing in synergy with in situ measurements. This sparked some ideas for HIGHWAVE and how remote sensing can be incorporated into the project.

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public meeting gaeilge Inis Meáin

On 2 October 2019, Professor Frédéric Dias gave an official presentation of the ERC project HIGHWAVE. There was a variety of guests including the UCD VP for Research, Orla Feely, the head of the School of Mathematics and Statistics, Brendan Murphy, and representatives of the following institutions: Met Eireann, Commissioners of Irish Lights, Royal Irish Academy, Irish Air Corps, Marine Institute, ICHEC, The Office of Public Works. Several members of UCD College of Engineering and Architecture, as well as the Wave Group led by Professor Dias, also attended.

presentation 021019Professor Dias explaining the occurrence of wave breaking.